VAX POPULI

Top GOP Senator to Grill RFK Jr. Over Anti-Vax Stance

The powerful conservative, who is also a physician, has a twofold role in whether Donald Trump’s nominee makes it.

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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), one of four physicians in the Senate, is set to meet with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday to discuss the health secretary nominee’s stance against vaccines, the Daily Beast has learned.

Cassidy has a twofold powerful role in deciding the fate of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services. He chairs the main Senate Health panel and sits on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, which will decide whether Kennedy’s nomination ever makes it to the Senate floor.

Cassidy aired his unease publicly on Sunday about RFK Jr.‘s more controversial statements and positions. “I agree with him on some things and disagree on others,” Cassidy said on Fox News Sunday. “The food safety, I think the ultra-processed food is a problem.”

But a source familiar told the Daily Beast on Monday that Cassidy, who now leads the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, wants to meet with Kennedy privately ahead of a full committee hearing.

The senator’s main concern, the source told the Beast, centers on the conspiratorial-minded Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views, which have been widely criticized and disputed by the medical community.

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“Vaccinations, he’s wrong on, and so I just look forward to having a good dialogue with him on that,” Cassidy said during his Fox News interview.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism and eccentric behavior—including allegations of whale decapitation, dumping a dead bear in Central Park, claiming to have brain worm and other conspiracies—“alarming.”

The HELP Committee chaired by Cassidy is slated to hold a “courtesy” hearing to weigh Kennedy’s nomination, which has not yet been scheduled. But the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing to decide whether to send Kennedy’s nomination to the chamber floor for a vote, which would likely occur late this month—if Kennedy, whose own family has turned on him, makes it that far. (Kennedy’s conspiracy theories include the assassination of his late uncle, President John F. Kennedy.)

Kennedy is one of Trump’s more controversial nominees. But Republicans close to Trump say they are optimistic about his odds, especially since a few Democrats—notably Sens. Bernie Sanders and John Fetterman—have left the door open to supporting Kennedy.

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Juliegrace BrufkeSenior Political Correspondent

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